Is Software Testing About Finding Bugs Only?

10 December, 2018

SigmaSoftware

Software testing, though being a mature discipline, is often associated with common myths among entrepreneurs. The most popular misconceptions include that software testing only begins in post-development phase, testers cannot add value to software or processes, or that a tester`s job is just finding bugs. In 2018 Sigma Software team completed a project for a Swedish customer, demonstrating through deeds that those are just delusions.

L.E.B System AB is a Swedish company that develops a comprehensive system for Real Estate management widely used by government, municipalities, and public sector. The system was initially created in 1990. In the beginning of 2018 a new generation of the system was released, so this required an in-depth approach to solution testing, especially considering that the upgraded system had to be delivered to one of Sweden's oldest and reputable organizations.

“Our Client has a large property portfolio with increasing maintenance costs. They made a decision to find a long-term sustainable and cost-effective property management tool. At the end of the day, L.E.B System was chosen to become a provider of such a solution. The program was in a generational shift, and when our client bought the system, it was decided that they will be the first to run in the new version. As a result, the test requirements in this project were quite high,” says Erik Nordenskiöld, Project Manager in L.E.B System. “We considered Sigma Software as a possible partner for development, and decided to cooperate with them regarding the tests as well.”

The team has started the work with an onsite visit to the Customer office to clarify all the requirements and expectations. The Customer initially planned to involve a testing team after the first release, however, Sigma Software specialists offered another approach:

“The earlier business engages test engineers, the lower is the risk of compromising the quality and shifting the schedule. Testing software after development requires test engineers to heavily rely on the developer with little insight into the details of approaches used in the development process. Testing software throughout the development process offers the advantage of testing the product incrementally based on all the factors involved,” says Alexander Toporov, Test Manager at Sigma Software. “We were pleased that the client agreed with our proposal to engage test engineers on the early stage, which allowed issuing the first release with more confidence and fewer risks.”

Starting from the second release, the manual part was significantly reduced, and we have shifted to automation. After a rigorous analysis of the system, our automation team has created scripts for users’ behavior scenarios; every and each was approved with the Customer to avoid any mistakes.

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Through an extensive knowledge sharing, as well as smooth and transparent communication, Sigma Software team also helped the Customer to streamline some inner processes and find the areas for improvements. We accompanied our work with detailed explanations on what we do and why, what results to expect and what value it may bring to the product and business.

Erik Nordenskiöld resumes:

“We are very pleased with the support we received from Sigma Software regarding manual testing and gathering of requirements. When it comes to test automation, guys developed a useful and scalable platform for front-end testing. We also feel that the end-customer is satisfied with the results.”

Well then, this project and the work done by Sigma Software team proved that it is only a myth that a test engineer’s role is limited by finding bugs and adds no value to the product.